Rand Paul equates universal healthcare to slavery

Here’s a clip from the transcript, thanks to our friends at ThinkProgress:

With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.

Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery.

I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.

I just wish we could travel back in time and let America’s slaves know that they were like 21st century doctors.

And I can’t wait till we get the public option, so that I can go to Paul’s house in the middle of the night, pound on his door and demand my free eye exam.

24 Comments

Wow. He’s going to have the same trouble as his father in that he’s unable to pass some of his ideas through the palatability filter. I actually thought Rand was different and less likely to stick to the platform, but hats off. That’s a pretty alienating statement.

But what about the notion underlying his seemingly crazy notions of slavery? What if Dr. Paul decided he was only going to practice when and on whom he wished. He’s a private business man, so presumably he could do so. What if I get poked in the eye with a stick and I live next door to Dr. Paul. I go over, ask for help, and he says no, he’s never going to help me. Am I really just going to go without care? Can the local constable really compel poor Dr. Paul to treat my injured eye?

The questions are preposterous because the premise relied upon by Dr. Paul ignores essential elements in favor of base pandering. Specifically, he appears to ignore the reality of insurance coverage. And he ignores the Hippocratic Oath.

I’m not familiar with the intricacies of insurance regulations, but I bet there are provisions in every program — private and public alike — that say in order to receive payment a doctor is bound to provide services within reasonable limits. These are contracts entered into willingly by business people, and even Dr. Paul recognizes the legitimacy of contracts.

But even if Dr. Paul or some of his colleagues are able to eschew insurance programs and care for only cash-up-front patients, a conscientious physician can’t set aside the Hippocratic Oath (which I imagine they abide, even in Kentucky):

“I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.

I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.”

Dr. Paul ignores inconvenient facts and argues based on demagoguery and folly. Shame.

Gosh! The average pay of a British GP (General Practitioner, i.e. average family doctor) is c. $160K, with some reputedly earning $400K-$480K. So, that’s how much slaves earned, is it? Ungrateful buggers!

This is so unbelievably offensive and so wrong on so many levels, I’m just glad it’s not anyone important saying it, and doesn’t represent what a significant proportion of Americans actually think….right?

I have health insurance now, but it’s never occurred to me to show up on the doorstep of my primary care physician, demanding that he lance a boil or something. Up until today, I’d call and make an appointment. No more, America. I’m going to start flexing my slave master muscles.

It stuns me how dogmatists like Paul ignore socialism AS a market force. Markets aren’t abstract. They are the interconnected movements of PEOPLE. Suddenly, the people don’t do what he wants – which is to enrich HIM – and he starts to tell us we’re all idiots for enslaving his rich ass.

Yes, markets are a huge part of our lives. But everything economic is markets: capitalism, socialism, even theft. It’s all an opportunistic response to stimuli. The market for health care in the U.S. is FUBAR. The citizens attempting to organization is as much a free market move as it was for him to buy a seat in the senate.

I recognize Glen S. ‘s sentiment here. If you say something often enough if takes on a cachet of truth. In essence, brainwashing. This is what is occurring in our society today. Not enough folks are thinking for themselves. This is how the Tea party has caught hold of so many people. This is how the whole “birther” idea gained traction. Libertarianism sounds nice on the surface, but once you look at it, it is rather idiotic, and highly impractical. If we start believing in what Rand, Ron and others are selling, then we will be the ones enslaved. Read Orwell’s 1984.

Senator Rand Paul’s comments reveal the failure of the American Republic. Idiots are elected to office, and claim to understand what the Founding Fathers meant in our “founding documents,” while actually displaying total ignorance and an absolute lack of common sense.

By the Senator’s “logic,” a postal worker is a slave — since the person to whom a letter is properly addressed and stamped has a “right” to it being delivered. Senator Paul has no idea what real slavery is like — but the Founding Fathers did. It was real, not an abstraction or a metaphor.

Barack Obama will be a one term President. People have caught on to his phony “I’m for you theme song” while taking vacations, making smartass comments about the border and not being transparent with the American people.

• Bin Laden Raid was unnecessary
• He would have not ordered the raid on Osama
• FEMA is unconstitutional
• Says we shouldn’t help people in disasters
• Taxes are theft
• Get rid of the Department of Education
• Get rid of Public Education
• Get rid of the Fed
• Get rid of the IRS
• Get rid of Social Security
• Get rid of Medicare
• Get rid of Medicaid
• Get rid of paper money
• Get rid of abortion
• Get rid of birthright citizenship
• US to quit the UN
US to quit NATO
• End Roe vs. Wade
• End gun regulation
• Massive deportations
• Businesses should be allowed to refuse service to blacks and other minorities.
• End income taxes
• Get rid of all foreign aid
• Get rid of public healthcare
• End all welfare and social programs
• Get rid of the CIA
• Get rid of all troops abroad
• Close all bases abroad
• Wants to isolate us from the rest of the world
• Get rid of war (but offers no plan to do so)
• Wants to build a 700 mile wall between US & Mexico but would have to steal money from you to build it (that’s what he calls taxes)
• End regulations on clean air
• Thinks we should “trust” business to do the right thing
• Doesn’t believe in evolution
• Thinks the earth is less than 8,000 years old
• Does not believe in separation of church and state
• Because of Paul’s hardline isolationist and anti-government philosophies, he is doing very well in winning the support of white supremacists and other, shall we say, race-obsessed individuals
• Strongest opponent of all “Hate Crime” Laws

After watching your disgraceful dog & pony show where you grilled Secretary of State Clinton this morning, I’ve been forced to reassess my opinion of you. Before today, I thought you were a shameful opportunist who cozied up to the Tea Party for political advantage, but I now see that I was wrong. You’re nothing of the kind.

You’re a deranged lunatic who has the audacity to envision yourself as Secretary Clinton’s superior, so that you could fantasize terminating her from office for not sharing your asinine, juvenile view of the world.

As tragic as the Benghazi attack was, you characterized it as “the worst tragedy since 9/11.” Really! A greater tragedy than the attacks in London? In Madrid? The 4,500 American soldiers who died in Iraq? A bigger tragedy than 20 slaughtered first graders, all because YOU and your ilk think the founding fathers were talking about weapons that wouldn’t even be invented for another 200 years when they wrote the 2nd Amendment?

“Had I been president at the time … I’d have relieved you of your post…” You sir, are nuts. You are not now, nor will you ever be the President of these United States. It’s only a fluke that you’re even a sitting U.S. Senator. But that sir, is temporary. Enjoy your moment in the spotlight while it lasts.